Dozens killed seeking aid in Gaza as Israel weighs further military
action
[August 07, 2025]
By WAFAA SHURAFA, FATMA KHALED and NATALIE MELZER
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — At least 38 Palestinians were killed
overnight and into Wednesday in the Gaza Strip while seeking aid from
United Nations convoys and sites run by an Israeli-backed American
contractor, according to local health officials. The Israeli military
said it had fired warning shots when crowds approached its forces.
Another 25 people, including several women and children, were killed in
Israeli airstrikes, according to local hospitals in Gaza. The military
said it only targets Hamas militants.
The latest deaths came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected
to announce further military action — and possibly plans for Israel to
fully reoccupy Gaza. Experts say Israel's ongoing military offensive and
blockade are already pushing the territory of some 2 million
Palestinians into famine. A new U.N. report said only 1.5% of Gaza's
cropland is accessible and undamaged.
Another escalation of the nearly 22-month war could put the lives of
countless Palestinians and around 20 living Israeli hostages at risk,
and would draw fierce opposition both internationally and within Israel.
Netanyahu's far-right coalition allies have long called for the war to
be expanded, and for Israel to eventually take over Gaza, relocate much
of its population and rebuild Jewish settlements there.
U.S. President Donald Trump, asked by a reporter Tuesday whether he
supported the reoccupation of Gaza, said he wasn’t aware of the
“suggestion” but that “it’s going to be pretty much up to Israel.”
More Palestinians killed in scramble for food
Of the 38 Palestinians killed while seeking aid, at least 28 died in the
Morag Corridor, an Israeli military zone in southern Gaza where U.N.
convoys have been repeatedly overwhelmed by looters and desperate crowds
in recent days, and where witnesses say Israeli forces have repeatedly
opened fire.
The Israeli military said troops fired warning shots as Palestinians
advanced toward them, and that it was not aware of any casualties.
Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies, said another four people
were killed in the Teina area, on a route leading to a site in southern
Gaza run by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an American
contractor. The Al-Awda Hospital said it received the bodies of six
people killed near a GHF site in central Gaza.
GHF said there were no violent incidents at or near its sites, and that
the one in central Gaza was not open on Wednesday. It said the violence
may have been related to the chaos around U.N. convoys.
Two of the Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza City, in the north of the
territory, killing 13 people there, including six children and five
women, according to the Al-Ahli Hospital, which received the bodies.
The Israeli military says it only targets militants and blames civilian
deaths on Hamas because its militants are entrenched in heavily
populated areas.
UN experts say Israeli-backed aid group should be dismantled
Israel facilitated the establishment of four GHF sites in May after
blocking the entry of all food, medicine and other goods for 2 1/2
months. Israeli and U.S. officials said a new system was needed to
prevent Hamas from siphoning off humanitarian aid.
The United Nations, which has delivered aid to hundreds of distribution
points across Gaza throughout the war when conditions allow, has
rejected the new system, saying it forces Palestinians to travel long
distances and risk their lives for food, and that it allows Israel to
control who gets aid, potentially using it to advance plans for further
mass displacement.
The U.N. human rights office said last week that some 1,400 Palestinians
have been killed seeking aid since May, mostly near GHF sites but also
along U.N. convoy routes where trucks have been overwhelmed by crowds.
It says nearly all were killed by Israeli fire.
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Raed Salem Aslyieh, left, from Jabaliya, hugs his relatives after
the death of his son, Ahmed Raed Aslyieh, 18, who succumbed to
injuries sustained in an Israeli strike that killed eight other
family members four months earlier, worsened by a lack of proper
treatment due to medicine shortages, at the morgue of Shifa Hospital
in Gaza City, Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
This week, a group of U.N. special rapporteurs and independent human
rights experts called for the GHF to be disbanded, saying it is “an
utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be
exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in serious
breach of international law.”
The experts work with the U.N. but do not represent the world body.
The GHF called their statement “disgraceful,” and urged the U.N. and
other aid groups to work with it “to maximize the amount of aid
being securely delivered to the Palestinian people in Gaza.”
The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots when
crowds threatened its forces, and GHF says its armed contractors
have only used pepper spray and fired into the air on some occasions
to prevent deadly crowding at its sites.
Gaza's farmland has been destroyed, contributing to hunger crisis
Israel's air and ground war has destroyed nearly all of Gaza's food
production capabilities, leaving its people reliant on international
aid.
A new report by the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization and the
U.N. satellite center found that just 8.6% of Gaza's cropland is
still accessible following sweeping Israeli evacuation orders in
recent months. Just 1.5% is accessible and undamaged, it said.
The military offensive and a breakdown in security have made it
nearly impossible for anyone to safely deliver aid, and aid groups
say recent Israeli measures to facilitate more assistance are far
from sufficient.
Hospitals recorded four more malnutrition-related deaths over the
last 24 hours, bringing the total to 193 people, including 96
children, since the war began in October 2023, according to the Gaza
Health Ministry.
Jordan says aid convoy attacked by Israeli settlers
Jordan said Israeli settlers blocked roads and hurled stones at a
convoy of four trucks carrying aid bound for Gaza after they drove
across the border into the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli
far-right activists have repeatedly sought to halt aid from entering
Gaza.
Jordanian government spokesperson Mohammed al-Momani condemned the
attack, which he said had shattered the windshields of the trucks,
according to the Jordanian state-run Petra News Agency.
The Israeli military said security forces went to the scene to
disperse the gathering and accompanied the trucks to their
destination.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in
the Oct. 7 attack and abducted another 251. Most of the hostages
have been released in ceasefires or other deals. Of the 50 still
held in Gaza, around 20 are believed to be alive.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed over 61,000 Palestinians,
according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not say how many
were fighters or civilians but says around half were women and
children. It is part of the now largely defunct Hamas-run government
and staffed by medical professionals. The U.N. and independent
experts consider it the most reliable source for the number of war
casualties.
___
Khaled reported from Cairo and Melzer from Tel Aviv. Israel.
Associated Press writers Stefanie Dazio in Berlin and Sally Abou
AlJoud in Beirut contributed to this report.
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